Retrieving arrows and other complaints
by glanmire
Summary: Bilbo gives out about the workload in his own fond way.


The problem, Bilbo reflected, with stories he used to read was that they lied for the sake of the narrative.

His books back in the Shire had all employed a neat trick where they would say, 'and they travelled for two weeks until they reached the such and such a place.'

Bilbo had been under false illusions for how much effort it took to cover one lousy sentence in a book, to "travel for two weeks", until he went on his own adventure and not just read about one.

The constant manual labour, the repetition of walking and riding, rain beating your face or sun beating your back, dwarves that had nothing to say and dwarves that spoke too much, eventually even stark opposites all blurred together so that everything seemed to have happened before, and it seemed impossible to endure it all again the next day, and the day after.

The other thing the stories neglected to mention were the unpleasant details of making camp. He was no fool; he had known that there would be 'tending to the ponies' (which actually entailed feeding and watering them, giving them shelter, tying them up and unpacking them, occasional brushing, and so on. Relatively simple stuff.)

He also knew there would be 'collecting firewood' (though what stories failed to mention was how mindless a task yet difficult that was. Did they want twigs or stick or branches? Was the ground wet and because of that the wood less likely to light? Were they the green sort of twigs that won't light properly but would send off thick, foul smoke instead? All these details, all so faithfully ignored by the storybooks.)

and of course, his personal favourite, 'making camp'. The stories seemed to think that making camp consisted of rolling out a bedroll and there you were, ready for the night.

It was not so easy, Bilbo learned quickly.

First, a perimeter had to be established. Everyone was expected to sleep within its confines to make the watch easier. The watch was another nuisance, with the dwarves ridiculously uptight about whose turn it was - Ori had been forced to compose a rota, and deviation for it caused mayhem in the company. Everyone, it seemed, just wanted sleep.

After that, the unpleasant work started. Well outside the perimeter, a small trench was dug every night, for everyone's 'business'. The fouler part was tipping soil back over it the next day, covering the stains of their existence, and trying not to gag as you did so.

Bilbo noticed that he seemed to get saddled trench duty a disproportionate amount of the time, him paired with one of the younger dwarves for the grisly task. He also noticed that the great Thorin Oakenshield never deigned to dig or fill in trenches- though he used them just like everyone else- and Bilbo thought a little bitterly that that was the perk of being the leader; you divide the labour, and not actually see it done yourself.

Another necessity was meat. Game needed to be caught, hunted or trapped, enough to feed ravenous mouths, but not too much that it would be a burden to cook over a fire. And yes, everything was cooked over a fire, because no dwarf, wizard or hobbit was willing to carry any other cooking utensils with them, so the raw, bleeding meat was roasted every night without fail till black and burnt, 'just to be on the safe side.'

That is of course, except for the nights where fires weren't allowed, for fear of enemies, or they just couldn't be lit at all. Then you had the choice of eating your share of meat raw, which was like to make you sick, or wrap it in a piece of cloth and stuff it deep into your bag for the next night. All your supplies would reek of blood then, and half the time the meat would have spoiled, but it was your choice.

No one forced you to do it, but no one wasted their meat though; it was too hard won. Bofur, a toymaker once, had the skill and patience to build intricate little traps that snapped like clockwork on top of the necks of unsuspecting rabbits.

And that sounded great, but you can't leave blood on a trap or the animals will be wary of it, and it would rust anyway, so that meant someone had to clean the damned thing every night, and although Bofur assured them it wouldn't snap and take a finger off, no one relished in the task.

Kili's skill with an arrow also sounded pleasant enough in theory, but in reality was just as wearisome. He only had a certain amount of arrows, so every single one had to be retrieved if they were to last the entire journey.

That was fine when it meant pulling one gently out of a dead squirrel's eye and wiping it down, but not so great when Kili shot them up a tree 'by mistake' and wasn't Bilbo the lightest and best climber and couldn't he go fetch them? Bilbo spent many an afternoon clung to a branch, at a dizzying height, trying to reach far-flung arrows, far too many afternoons for it to be a coincidence.

All this washing of traps and equipment required water, and that meant sourcing it. And no, often there was not a convenient river babbling right beside their camp. Often the nearest water source was miles away, and worse, back the way they had come, making their progress seem worthless.

The dwarves craftsmanship did help here admittedly; they had a barrel with long handles coming out each side that you could roll along like a wheelbarrow instead of having to carry that much water on your back. Bilbo appreciated that, he really did, because the dwarves used excessive amounts of water in his opinion, and he did not fancy hefting gallons of it on his back for leagues.

They didn't use it for personal hygiene, no. (It was Ori, he noticed after several weeks, that was the most careful with cleanliness, but he was the exception, and even he only bathed once every two weeks or so.) It was grooming rather than hygiene they wanted water for- the dwarves liked to style their ridiculous beards once every couple of days.

(Bilbo had never laughed harder than when he first saw Thorin Oakenshield undo his braids and saw that thick black hair all crinkled and curled like a young girl hobbit's. All he needed was a flower behind one ear and he would be the prettiest of them all. He did not voice these opinions out loud, but his laughter was clue enough, and Thorin didn't speak to him for three days.)

Tending to their beards was a long and tedious process, like every other process the dwarves were in charge of. They were first soaked with water, then combed throughly (Fili had the largest collection of combs, a fact which really quite surprised Bilbo, though he wasn't sure why.)

It got complicated after that- different herbs mixed with water at different strengths depending on which style they wanted. (Bombur needed the strongest concoction to keep his ridiculous style in place, which wasn't surprising at all.)

When the setting up, the gathering, the hunting, the cooking, the cleaning and the grooming were all complete, then you could snatch a piece of sleep.

That is, if you didn't mind the sound of dwarf snores, which far from being soothing, made Bilbo reminiscent of the sound that the stone-giants had made as they attacked one another, walls of stone colliding like thunder.

There was no shelter made either even though Bilbo demonstrated a simple shelter one night in exasperation to them.

You found two trees, slung a branch in between them, and leaned various sizes of wood up against that side bar, and heaped leaves on top of that. It took ten minutes at most, and would house all of them, at a push.

Thorin had smiled at that, but it was a smile of condescension, Bilbo found put fast enough. Turns out if you pile a dozen or so dwarves into a confined area, dwarves who have travelled all day and not washed anything other than their damnable beards, then things got unbearably hot and foul-smelling within moments.

He still didn't understand why they couldn't shed a few layers- was their really need to sleep in armour, boiled leather, chain mail, whichever? Thorin was definitely the guiltiest of that particular offence, but since the shelter-disaster, Bilbo had refrained himself from giving the dwarves advice. They would just scoff at him anyway and continue with their ways.

He wondered if chain mail was warm though. He made it to sleep, thinking about warmth, not the unpleasant heat that comes off sleeping near so many dwarves, but proper heat, from blankets and fires and tea. He fell asleep, dreaming of idea of it, only to be woken what seemed like moments later, for his watch. It never did end.


End file.
